A Note From the Tribal Historic Preservation Office

One of the recent additions to the THPO is the institution of an outreach committee that aids in planning and participating in different events. To date, we have created a THPO Christmas card that was on display in front of the Big Cypress gym in December, and spectacularly lost at football during the annual Big Cypress Toilet Bowl tournament.

In even bigger news, we have two very big events occurring in the month of February. The first event is the Brighton Field Days, which is February 17-19 on the Brighton Reservation. At this event, we will have a THPO tent that will have a variety of activities that help in teaching historic preservation. Activities at the booth will include touch boxes (reach inside the box and tell us what you feel – turtle shell, squirrel fur, what is it?), puzzles of pottery pieces (broken pottery that you have to put back together), and a bean bag toss game that focuses on learning about Seminole history and culture.

The second event in February is the Big Cypress Shoot Out that is occurring February 24-26. As visitors enjoy this event, they can also come visit us at our THPO tent. At this tent we will have a mock dig in which children and adults can hone their archaeological skills. Another exciting game that we hope everyone will enjoy is chunkey, which has been played in North America since at least 1,000 years ago. In this game, a chunkey stone (round stone with a hole in it) was rolled on the ground while several players threw spears at the location they thought would be the final location of the stone. The person who threw the spear closest to the stone’s final location without actually hitting the stone won. The final event will include a type of trivia game in which all of the questions are related to the Seminole Wars.

We hope that these activities will allow us to teach the public a little bit about what we do at the THPO on a daily basis. If you attend the Shoot Out or the Field Days, please stop by the THPO tent and say hi!